If I recall correctly he issued an executive order to transfer the prisoners to mainland US and the US senate cut funding for the prisoner transport with an overwhelming majority. There is indeed a legal vacuum here, as these people are neither prisoners of war nor ordinary law-abiding citizens, but the US political order has had over ten years to fill the vacuum and proved incompetent to do so. They get to go.

The issue isn't so much as to where it's held, but the fact we continue to hold people, nearly a decade later, without trial. A fair portion of the prisoners there are marked for release even. Moving them to mainland US doesn't solve the human rights abuses we're committing. Repatriate the detainees we can no longer legally hold, put the rest on trial in civilian courts.

However, Obama doesn't have a reelection campaign coming up for himself so it's doubtful he'll switch from his usual right-center-right policies and do something like that.

I don't get the last phrase, but I agree with the first part..

Yes, there's nothing centre-right about imprisonment without trial. It's an act of cowardly incompetence masquerading as evil, or quite possibly vice versa.

Obama's failure to live up to his most basic promises is pathetic. He started his premiership with a large stockpile of political capital, squandered all of it in an early push to get his health insurance going (a good idea, but poorly handled... did he get it up and running after all that effort?) and has been able to do sod all aside from get re-elected ever since.

Why should we close Guantanomo? No one has died there, and it keeps dangerous and violent TERRORISTS in prison where they belong.

The NRA does no damage to this country. It makes people aware of their rights. Next?

And the NRA kills nobody. Al Qaeda kills thousands of people a year.

Re: NRA doesn't kill
Never said they did, don't believe they do, just saying they're more dangerous than Al Qaeda now
Re: Al Qaeda kills thousands of people a year
Facts please
Re: TERRORISTS
that label is a legal one, applied after a trial (and I'm happy to see scores of terrorists executed or in prison, if, and only if, they've passed a fair trial proving them guilty)
Re: no one has died there
No one died there? Really? That's the criterium for closing something down?

How is NRA more dangerous than an evil terrorist group?

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com

So whats your criteria for closing Guantanomo?

Also, http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/05/al-qaeda_attacks

The last source doesnt cover all attacks

You promised me thousands a year, I see no more than a couple of hundred over the last ten.
Annnddddd we're done. :-)

Since the NRA's unfortunate leadership change a few decades back they've gone from an organisation supporting responsible gun ownership backed by basic gun control laws to a far more extreme and unjustified position of backing big guns for everyone based on a somewhat blinkered view of the constitution. This switch has arguably cost more American lives than Al Qaeda, who seem to enjoy killing Asians and Africans more than Americans these days.

I fail to see how any sane lover of democracy can argue in favour of off-shore jails imprisoning people without trial for indefinite periods of time. When South American dictatorships disappeared people they at least had the decency to be embarrassed enough by it to pretend it wasn't happening.

thereligionofpeace.com

@redhouse ... yes, we should close it. Sbyvl obviously thinks that people are no longer people once they are arrested (and not necessarily tried), so it's safe to ignore him because that's plain stupid. The prison is just about everything bad about the United States and it's really sad that we try to portray ourselves as the greatest country in the world (fuck that, we're not) and we still have this kind of stuff going on.

Wow, some patriot you are. Anyhow, most people at Guantanomo are convicted. As for the others, they are awaiting trial. Whats the problem?

What's the problem?
That spending 12 years in a cage wearing an orange suit with the Cuban sun on your head isn't exactly what we in Marxist Europe call a civilized way to have someone await his trial, you blatant moron.

If you're ever going to be thrown into the world's worst prison, you should at least be convicted first.

So, is closing Guantanamo going to stop Islamic based schools from teaching children a fundamental hatred of the US and western culture in general?

Fact: Guantanamo holds enemy combatants. It is akin to prison of war camps and rightfully so as the enemy it holds would kill us if given the chance. Fact - Foreigners are not granted the same protections by the US government as US citizens. So indefinite detention is fine by me. They aren't citizens and therefore have no rights especially not to a civilian trial.

Christ Draug. That's a little cruel - even by your standards. So, because people weren't fortunate enough to be born in the great US of A, they shouldn't be afforded basic civil rights? Or compassion?

@Yonni--No they are not. When a person or group of people fail to adhere to the basic principles of war aka Geneva Conventions then why should they be given the rights they refuse to acknowledge for others?

@ The Czech

Because we're the good guys who believe in human rights, honour and decency, perhaps?

@Octavious... that is questionable...

@Octavious-perhaps....then again history has taught us that if a people offer their enemies the same rights as citizens they are defeated from within. I don't want that as an option. I don't sleep well at night knowing that terrorists are alive. I would sleep better if the Marines were in charge.

@ The Czech

You'd sleep better if the navy's toy soldiers were in charge?!? I can't think of anything more terrifying!

Seriously, though, in what sense has history taught us that lesson?

There isn't any evidence that everyone in Gitmo is a terrorist. We know that some of the people swept up in the War on Terror are innocent; likely some of the current prisoners are as well. We are expected to just trust our government.

Draug, you're wrong about the rights of the prisoners; everyone has that right. The Constitution doesn't grant rights, it recognizes them. And if they're prisoners of war, with whom are we at war? What end to hostilities will allow them to be released? A prisoner of war should only be held for a limited duration. Treating a decentralized, multi-headed international conspiracy like Al-Qaeda as a "government" is at a minimum unsustainable.

Here's the thing: either these guys are criminals who broke American or international, in which case they deserve a trial with all the rights and privileges therein; or, they are prisoners of war, in which case they should be part of military tribunals to decide and clarify who is and who isn't an enemy combatant and thus can be held as prisoners of war and for how long. There is no "none of the above" option to just hold people; that's a hallmark of dictatorship.

That should be "broke American or international LAW." It probably makes more sense if I remember all the words.

Octavious--"I can't think of anything more terrifying!"

Sharia law doesn't bother you? Marines vs. Sharia law, I'll take the Marines. They are under the control of the peolpe through our election of the President, their commander in chief. Sharia Law not so much under the control of the people, just clerics who act as gods.

The whole "I'd prefer the Marines" thing is extremely confusing to me. First of all, the Marines are not meant to be an occupying force (that's usually the Army's job). Secondly, due to the fact that the Marine Corps is not meant to be such a force, it is more militaristic and less relatable to the occupied people. A situation where the Marine Corps decided to take control of the entire country would be a total nightmare, for the government, the people, and mostly, the Corps itself, as it would be woefully unprepared, undermanned, and underfunded to undergo such an endeavor.